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Scariest Ghost Tours for Halloween

Book these ghost tours to explore the world's haunted spaces, meet scary spirits, listen to dark legends—and, yes, maybe learn a little history—just in time for Halloween. This article was originally published on October 17, 2014.

Scariest Ghost Tours for Halloween

Book these ghost tours to explore the world's haunted spaces, meet scary spirits, listen to dark legends—and, yes, maybe learn a little history—just in time for Halloween. This article was originally published on October 17, 2014.

Tour:The Ultimate Greenwich Village Ghost Tour takes guests through some of New York City's most famous haunts, including the "House of Death," (pictured) a house that is haunted by 22 spirits—including (possibly) the ghost of Mark Twain, who lived there for a year.

What Else You'll Pass: St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, McSorley's Tavern, the Public Theatre, the Merchant's House Museum, and Washington Square Park.

Tours meet at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, 131 E 10th St, New York, NY, 646-932-0680; boroughsofthedead.com. Tours last two hours and cost $20 in advance, $25 at the door.

You Might Meet: A boy who haunts the sixth floor of Hayden Hall at New York University. He hanged himself there more than 20 years ago; now he spends his time opening and closing drawers and moving furniture around.

FYI: All of Boroughs of the Dead's tour guides are writers who specialize in horror and speculative fiction (and a few of them are actors, too)—so they know how to tell a good ghost story.

Tours meet at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, 131 E 10th St, New York, NY, 646-932-0680; boroughsofthedead.com. Tours last two hours and cost $20 in advance, $25 at the door.

You Might Meet: A boy who haunts the sixth floor of Hayden Hall at New York University. He hanged himself there more than 20 years ago; now he spends his time opening and closing drawers and moving furniture around.

FYI: All of Boroughs of the Dead's tour guides are writers who specialize in horror and speculative fiction (and a few of them are actors, too)—so they know how to tell a good ghost story.

Tours meet in front of St. Peter's Catholic Church, 100 Church St, Harpers Ferry, WV, 304-725-8019; harpersferryghost.20m.com. The tours last between 90 and 105 minutes, and cost $14 for adults, $10 per child between the ages of 8 and 12, free for children younger than 8 years old.

You Might Meet: Dangerfield Newby, one of John Brown's raiders and a freed slave—his father was his master and his mother was a slave. Newby was killed and his body mutilated by an angry crowd during John Brown's raid, and he still haunts Hog Alley today.

FYI: Even if you're skeptical of all of this ghost stuff, the Harpers Ferry tour gives an overview of the history of the area as it pertained to the living.

Tours meet in front of St. Peter's Catholic Church, 100 Church St, Harpers Ferry, WV, 304-725-8019; harpersferryghost.20m.com. The tours last between 90 and 105 minutes, and cost $14 for adults, $10 per child between the ages of 8 and 12, free for children younger than 8 years old.

Tour:The Modern Hauntings Tour of Savannah—which includes a stop at the famed Colonial Park Cemetery—is only open to adults 18 and older, so it can get a little more R-rated than those open to families. (Blue Orb's City of the Dead tour is more appropriate for those traveling with kids).

What Else You'll Pass: Bradley’s Lock and Key, which once hosted a séance with members of Harry Houdini's family, and the Savannah Theater, which John Wilkes Booth visited a week before he shot President Lincoln. Booth was there to see his brother, Edwin, act in a play.

You Might See: Rather, it's what you might not see that could be extraordinary. The Colonial Park Cemetery was once Savannah's dueling grounds, and a Georgia governor had a playground built on top of some of the unmarked graves of the unlucky duelers, as well as Revolutionary War soldiers. Visitors who take a picture on the playground's swings sometimes find that they don't turn up in the final image.

FYI: If you can't make it to the tour in person, you can still hear about Savannah's unexplained phenomenon with Supernatural Science, Blue Orb's podcast.

Tour:The Market Ghost Tour takes you through Seattle's Pike Place Market. Though many tourists know of the area as the home to fish-throwers or the first Starbucks, few know that it also is home to the city's first mortuary and part of an old graveyard.

What Else You'll Pass: Tour guides choose their own routes through the market, so there's no set path. All tours, however, start at the Ghost Alley Espresso near Seattle's famed Gum Wall, where visitors leave behind chewed pieces of gum; it's frightening in its own right.

Want To Be a Ghost Hunter? A second tour—the Mortuary Investigation, located in an old mortuary that’s not open to the public—takes visitors through the basics of a paranormal investigation, using cameras and audio recording equipment.

FYI: The Market Ghost Tour operates when the Public Market is closed—it might be the only time you'll get to see it without the crowds.

What You'll Pass: The route is a closely guarded secret, but you'll walk through the churches and dimly lit alleyways of the square-mile City of London, the oldest sector of the city.

You Might Meet: There's a cast of shadowy figures on parade here, from the "She-Wolf of France" that haunts a churchyard to the "Black Nun" who keeps a solitary vigil.

FYI: If you're interested in grisly stories that don't necessarily have a supernatural bent, London Walks also hosts popular Jack the Ripper tours.

Ghosts of the Old City tours meet at exit 2 of St. Paul's Tube, London, United Kingdom +44 (020) 7624 3978; walks.com. Walks last two hours and cost £10 per person ($15), or £8 ($51) for full-time students, seniors over 65, and those who have a Walkabout Card (which can be purchased on the tour), children under 15 go free.

Tour: If wandering around the remnants of an abandoned penal colony wasn't creepy enough, the lantern-lit Port Arthur Historic Site Ghost Tour takes you through the most haunted buildings located on the isolated peninsula.

What You'll Pass: You'll wander through a little more than a mile of the Australia World Heritage Site, entering three or four of the buildings that play a role in the area's history as a convict site.

You Might Meet: Keep an eye on the windows; one visitor in the 1920s repeatedly saw a vision of a young girl tapping on the glass of the Junior Medical Officer’s House, asking to be let in. Each time the visitor approached the window to open it, the little girl vanished.

Tour: Rome by day may be dazzlingly beautiful, but it's a completely different city at night, as Dark Rome's Ghosts, Legends, & Mysteries of Rome Walking Tour by Night can attest. Along the way, you’ll hear stories of executions, murders, and other unsavory acts performed by the Romans.

You Might Meet: Beatrice Cenci, who was sentenced to death and beheaded in front of Castel Sant'Angelo for murdering her abusive father. Crowds of Romans gathered to beg for mercy on her execution day, but it was no use. Now, Cenci's ghost can be seen wandering outside of Castel Sant'Angelo throughout September, the month of her execution. (She’s also been the subject of countless works of art.)

FYI: If you're more interested in earthly remains than spiritual ones, Dark Rome offers a Crypts and Catacombs tour.